We apologise for the delay in speaking to an officer.

Mark was assaulted last night.

It was dreadful.

At about half past two I picked up a passenger at the nightclub. She was going to Coniston, which is an awfully long way away.

She was very drunk and possibly not very clever, which made for a tedious journey back, because she talked a very great deal. Fortunately she was in no state to notice any absence of responses, and so I ignored her completely and got on with my own thoughts.

My phone rang just before we got there. I had to ignore that as well, because of not talking on the phone whilst driving, at least not when anybody might be looking.

It was Mark.

As soon as I had shovelled her out I rang him back.

He was in an awful state.

I put my foot to the floor and hurtled back along the winding narrow roads from Coniston.

When I got home he had emptied the dogs and was sitting, dazedly, in the living room.

His face was swollen and beginning to turn purple, and his neck had fingernail gouge marks.

It had been a couple from the nightclub. They had been in some sort of argument inside, and were agitated, in that cocaine sort of way, hopping from foot-to-foot and talking too loudly.

They were going miles away, but decided, after a few minutes, that they didn’t much like the sound of the fare Mark had quoted, and announced that they were not going to pay.

Mark pulled over to the side of the road and suggested that they got out and got another taxi.

What happened next came completely without warning.

The bloke shouted that he was going to sort Mark out, and reached through from the back seat. He wrapped his arm round Mark’s neck and dragged him through the gap between the seats.

Mark struggled, but he had not been expecting it in the least, and was completely trapped. The bloke punched him in the side of the head, again, and again, and again, Mark thought afterwards at least fifteen times, perhaps twenty. Then he let him go and got out. He came round to the driver’s door and opened it, and tried to drag Mark out by the legs.

Mark kicked out, and fought his way free. The bloke stumbled backwards in the road, and Mark pulled himself out, at which point, fortunately, a passing police car stopped.

The bloke was not in the least hurt. He went rushing up to them and told them that he was being assaulted by a taxi driver.

The police ignored Mark, who was too dazed and battered to say much anyway, and took the customers aside to listen courteously to them.

The bloke and his girlfriend told some long story, and the police came over to Mark. Mark tried to explain the he had been attacked, but the police said that the customer had made a complaint of assault, and they were not going to arrest him. If they did anything they would arrest them both, and put them in the cells to cool down.

They reassured the customer that they would help him find another taxi, and sent Mark on his way.

Mark could not go back to work.

When I got home he was so shaken he could hardly talk.

I rang the police and was livid. I mean, really livid. This made them grumpy, because they don’t like being shouted at. They stopped wanting to speak to me, and demanded to speak to him.

They did not have any report of the incident. They thought that if Mark really wanted to make a statement they would come round and take one in the next couple of days.

We put ice on Mark’s swollen face and dosed him with painkillers.

When we got up this morning we discovered that in the struggle the mirror had been snapped off the windscreen, and the windscreen glass cracked all round it. The meter had been twisted to a peculiar angle, and spilled tea was everywhere.

We rang the police again.

We waited on hold in their call system for over an hour, and then a recorded voice told us that they were too busy to take the call at all, and cut us off.

Mark had to go and haul some firewood. I rang the police back, leaving the phone on speaker and just getting on with the day’s jobs whilst I waited.

After another forty minutes a girl answered.

She said kindly that she would send an email to the officer concerned, and that perhaps he would get back to us this evening.

This means that Mark will have to spend the busiest night of the week, our money-earning time, making a statement to the police. We have already spent hours today, trying to get through their call system.

We will have to replace the windscreen on the car. We will have to pay for this ourselves, because nobody is being charged with assault.

Mark has never in his life hit anybody. He does not have a short fuse. Indeed, I am not sure that he has got a fuse at all. He is mild and gentle and peaceful and passive. He does not even shout at customers. I do that. I get cross with idiots, but Mark doesn’t. He nods and ignores them and lets it all roll off his back.

Today he is bruised and hurt. His taxi has been damaged, he missed the end of the night’s work, and he is more upset than I can begin to tell you. At the time of writing the police have not called back to consider that they might take a statement from him.

I think to say that I am angry does not sufficiently cover it.

I am so furious that I can hardly speak.

LATER NOTE: 2:30 am. The police have just called to tell us they think they will be able to spare some time to take a statement from Mark on Thursday.

Further words fail me.